The Night I Met You
by LastSaskatchewanSpacePirate
Summary: Greg Lestrade met four different people on four different nights and each of these meetings changed his life. T just in case.


**Four Nights Greg Lestrade Met Four People. **[and they became his greatest hits]**  
**

Just a drabble.

* * *

**one**  
"Who's this?" he asks, looking from Sherlock to the newcomer in confusion.

"He's with me." is the curt reply. This is all the information the detective expects him to need, breezing past Lestrade in an instant to snap on a pair of gloves. A million and one alarm bells go off in Greg's head. This is... different. Wrong. Because Sherlock isn't _with _people. He just isn't. Greg shrugs on the suit and sneaks a glance at the man standing to his right. Small, stocky, blonde, knitted jumper, walks with a cane, harmless looking. Conclusion? Nothing. Sherlock could have rattled off the man's job history, age, address, sexuality, in half a second before even getting into anything deeper. But Lestrade, as always seems the case, can see nothing. And this worries him a bit.

"But who is he?" Greg demands, but is rewarded with only an _"I said, he's with me."_ This is Sherlock speak for piss off, Lestrade, none of your business.

Except that anything that is Sherlock's business is Greg's business too. Greg turns back to sneak another glance at the man. He can't just let this guy in here on a _he's with me. _It's against the law to consult Sherlock at all, he's certainly not allowed to bring friends along.

Not that that's ever been an issue before, because, well, Sherlock doesn't have friends.

Greg doesn't like it. He doesn't want strangers in on his crime scene. And he certainly, certainly, certainly does not want strangers anywhere near Sherlock.

**two**  
It is dusk when he pulls up to Saint Bartholomew's Hospital in a cab. The sky is a purple-black-blue, the lights of the city bright against the canvas of sky. He pays the fare and steps out onto the street, and only then does he see her.

There is a girl sitting on the curb, elbows propped on knees, chin propped on palms. She has long hair that is red-brown in the light and she wears a white dress without sleeves. This girl looks up at Greg as he walks by, and he stops for a moment, recognizing her face but not her name, and he hesitates.

"You can't go in." she says. Her voice is very light. It makes him think of birds. "Sherlock's thinking."

"Ah." he says, understanding this, and he slides his hands into his pockets. "He does that."

She smiles up at him from the curb and he nods at the space beside her. "May I?" This is rewarded with a smile and a nod, and for some reason this makes him feel happy and he sits down on the curb next to her. The night is cold and he shivers. "Do you want a coat?" he asks. She shakes her head no, and he looks doubtfully at her dress and asks again. "You sure? Aren't you cold?"

"I shouldn't have worn this." she says, staring down at her shoes. "Silly of me."

"Yeah, well." says Greg. "We all do silly things. Here. Have this." He shrugs his own coat off and hands it over to her. She looks doubtful. "I can't-"

"I insist."

She gives him a little uncertain smile, and he returns it as she slides the coat on. "Much better, thanks." she says quietly. She speaks to the ground when she talks.

"Greg Lestrade." he says pleasantly, and offers her a hand to shake. She looks up at him once more, and the smile comes back, and he thinks it's beautiful.

"Molly Hooper." she says, and she takes his hand.

**three**  
"There is a security camera on the building to your left. Can you see it?"

"Who is this?" demands Greg, holding the mobile to one ear. It is late, and the streets are mostly deserted. The night is dark and he stops under a streetlamp, safer in the small circle of light, protected somehow. Moths flit about above his head. "What do you want?"

"Do you see the camera?"

Greg turns his head to the left, because what the hell, and sure enough, there it is. "Yeah." he says into the phone. "I see-"

The camera moves.

Greg stops talking very abruptly and despite the warm night he feels suddenly cold because anyone who can call up your mobile and make cameras turn to look at you is someone you probably don't want to be talking to.

"There is another camera on the building to your right." continues the voice on the other end. "Do you see it?"

"What do you want?" demands Greg, loud now, out of fear. "Why are you watching me?"

"Get in the car, Detective Inspector." says the voice, and Greg turns in his circle of light just in time to see a long polished black car pulling up to the curb.

"Who are you!?" he yells into the phone, but the line has disconnected. The car stops. Waiting. The windows are tinted, and he cannot see through the glass. The whole car is shrouded in darkness. It has stopped just outside where the light from the streetlamp can reach, and this makes him uncomfortable a bit. Greg eyes it for a moment more, still holding the phone to his ear. And then he makes a decision, and though the line he is clutching is already dead he says it into the phone.

"No."

And though the line he is clutching is already dead, somehow whoever has the power to make cars pull up and cameras move seems to understand because suddenly the door of the car swings open and a man in a dark suit gets out and suddenly there is another car with five men in suits and Greg has time to think _oh, not good_ before they are all on the pavement and walking toward him. The instinct to flee is immediate. But Greg is not a coward, and running would do nothing, so he takes a deep breath of night air and squares his shoulders as he watches six men in black suits walk toward him and thinks to himself encouraging things like _I can take you_ and _you are not putting me in that car_ and _what the hell have I got myself into now._ But he does not run. He fights, and he could perhaps have won that fight if someone had not decided to play dirty and crack him over the head with something hard.

It is still night when he wakes up, not in a car but in a warehouse tied to a chair, and there is a voice speaking to him - that voice, _the_ voice, the one that asks questions about cameras and sends men to force you into cars.

"It was a simple request." says the voice. "I asked you to get into the car."

Greg blinks a few times, finally able to focus his eyes on the image of a man in a suit standing before him. The man leans his weight on a small black umbrella.

"Now." says the man with the umbrella. "What is the nature of your relationship with Sherlock Holmes?"

**four**

The only way to describe the weather was _freezing cold_, and now that the sun has dropped and it is night the cold is even more pronounced. There is no snow, not yet, the pavement is bare, but it is raining - a light rain, a drizzle - and he can see it slanting past the lights in the tunnel. Greg is soaked through and shivering. He wears only a light coat and stows his hands deep into his pockets, standing as close to the others as he can. He shifts from foot to foot, clenching his teeth to keep them from chattering. The light is strangely blue down here and it does nothing to improve the feeling of _cold cold cold cold cold_.

There's a man lying face down in the tunnel with a knife in his back. The others stand in a circle, huddled together, saying things about finishing the investigation in the morning and letting forensics deal with it. Greg is not looking at the dead man. Greg's eye is drawn, not to the man on the ground, but to the only other living inhabitant of the underpass: a boy seated at the far end, back against the cement. He is watching them - Greg can see the lights reflected in his eyes. The boy has no shoes, no coat. Greg has seen them everywhere here, the homeless, they are deep in the slums of London at the very edge of their jurisdiction. Boys like these fill the streets and the tunnels of the city. He ought to accept and ignore, but he cannot tear his eyes from this one boy. He's not a boy, not really, late twenties probably, but younger than Greg's forty-two, so just a kid to him. And Greg is tired of it. He does not care that it is not his place to be hero, that these children of the streets are beyond saving. He will do something. Just this once. Just this one boy.

The boy grows bored with watching them, turns his head. He looks down at his feet so that his long dark curls fall into his face. His arms are tight around himself to keep him from freezing, and he tightens this grip now, curling in on himself. He is so pale that he seems to glow in the poor light. There are pockmarks on the skin of the forearm - even in this light, they're visible. Addict - but the gaunt face and the hollow sunken eyes could have given him that. So young. So much potential, maybe, once, and Greg is sad.

He starts walking toward the boy before he is aware of what he is doing. If the others call out to him, he does not hear. The boy looks up at him, and when the light catches in his eyes they shine. He says nothing, and nor does Greg. The DI shrugs off one sleeve of his coat, and then the other. He bends down, balancing on his heels, so that he and the boy are at the same height. Their eyes meet for a second, eye-to-eye. His are very blue. Greg drapes the jacket finally around the boy's shoulders, and the blue eyes look up at him. There is an emotion there in the blue that Greg cannot quite read. He is shivering now, harder without the jacket, and he crosses his arms over his chest. Still, the boy says nothing, and he turns to walk away.

When he has taken four steps back toward his team the boy calls out to him.

He says five words.

He says "Your father lives in Dorset."

Greg stops dead. Slowly, he turns. The boy sits there, Greg's coat drawn round his thin frame, looking at him. The boy repeats it, maybe because he enjoys the look on Greg's face.

"Your father lives in Dorset."

Greg frowns. He takes a step back toward the boy. "And how do you know that?"

"I didn't know." says the boy. "I noticed."


End file.
